Saturday, January 23, 2016

It is hard to know where to start really, when describing
the Guyanas. Most folks don’t know where they are, and those that do have only
a fleeting memory of school geography, or perhaps collecting stamps.

The three “Guyanas” lie on the northeast coast of South
America. They are politically different, two independent (Guyana of Great
Britain and Suriname of Holland), and French Guyana remains an integral part of
France.

A Saramaccan boy

They are a part of the giant Amazon basin, and are characterized
by massive rivers flowing out to the ocean through vast jungles. They are home
to a wide variety of people, a reflection of the countries’ harsh history and
importation of slaves and indentured labour from Africa, India, China and
Indonesia. Added to these poor folks, were the settlers from France, Holland
and the Britain, and a few displaced Brazilian Jews, some Venezuelans and, of
course, the completely bewildered Amerindians to whom these lands had been home
and peaceful for centuries.

The cocktail was poisonous; the lands violent and difficult,
and by the end of the nineteenth century most of the plantations had died out
to be swallowed whole by the jungle, and the French left to develop their
ghastly penal settlements in peace.

The Camp de Transportation in St. Laurent, French Guyana

For contemporary tourists, however, this toxic history, now
settled, offers an extraordinary opportunity to see fascinating and friendly communities,
deep jungle, rich savannas, quirky cities and beyond all, friendly and
welcoming people.

The Surinamese jungle is a wonderful place; in particular, I
love the Upper Suriname river, and the rich African culture that it embraces. Twenty-three
settlements, established by the Saramaccan tribe of “Maroons”, escaped
slaves of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, lie
along this gorgeous river. They are miles beyond the road system, and for many years
lived as a predominantly self-administering region. Their government had a
single leader, with captains for clusters of five or so villages each of which
had their own captain and vice-captain. This structure kept order, maintained
their culture and language, and lived their lives.

The School Boat - The Upper Suriname River

Village Houses

Traditional to this day, African anthropologist come to
study the language and culture of Benin and Dahomey, lost to contemporary
Africa, but preserved here in the Surinamese jungle. The villages are neat, clearly
structured and the people along the river busy and alive. Their societies have,
for all intents and purposes been cashless for centuries, as they have grown
and caught their food, and built houses, boats and furniture from the myriad of
available resources; life is slow, and iguanas plod gently through the
communities.

A local house

The need for cash, however, has gradually encroached; one
cannot pay a cell-phone bill with coconuts, and Facebook is as prevalent here
as it is in London. As is the way of the world, young men have gone away in
search of money, there being little cash in the jungle, and quickly, centuries
of carefully structured societies are being changed. One answer to this has
been to develop some tourism, and to this end there are now over twenty “lodges”,
of varying sophistication and comfort, spread along the river. This, of course,
is too many, and soon enough some will fail, and slowly disintegrate into the
water.

Now, however, visitors are spoiled for choice, and they offer a truly
authentic and unpasteurized experience of the deep jungle. The creatures, great
and small, are there; the forests deep, riding into the river system between
high canopies of massive trees one is simply in awe of the environment. Huge
walls of vegetables; villages made of leaves; trees offering a myriad of
wonderful medical benefits; food scuttling and swimming all around and not a
snowflake to shovel.

The Upper Suriname River is astonishing; only from the air can one realize that
it is significantly populated; the villages spread along the ribbon of water from
the Brokopondo Lake to the junction with the Pikin and Gran Rios. Communities
of fascinating, knowledgeable, friendly people trying their best to keep their
culture and spirit alive.

As a visitor, one feels like a voyeur; we are there to learn
and to appreciate, and to do so one must observe and inquire. It can be
awkward; some want their photos to be taken, some believe that by listening to
stories we are stealing their words. Women work at the river’s edge cleaning
and scrubbing paying little heed to contemporary clothing conventions, but too
many wanderers observing have made them self-conscious, and they are changing
their ways.

Waiting to take supplies to the mourners

Traditional lives are lived; following the death of an
elder, the men of the community will take the body to a sacred place in the forest
for three weeks; women will bring some supplies, but other than this brief
contact, they are alone with the spirits of the people and the environment;
these traditions, such a vital part of the fabric of the Saramaccan society are
slowly being nibbled away.

It is, perhaps inevitable, but it makes the
privilege of being welcomed into these communities even more precious.

Boat Building

Now is the time to visit; combining the Savannah of southern
Guyana with the Maroon villages of the Upper Suriname river is an extraordinary
combination; the “turf and surf” of the Guyanas, the yin and yang of the
northern Amazon. A prefect journey for those seeking an understanding of the
environment, the people whose lives are so intimately woven with their lands
and the cultures of this remote region before they are gone.

The Guyanas offer a fabulous experience for some travelers;
those with an inquiring personality, a liking for a little discomfort, an
appreciation of the delicious meat of the Tapir and a desire to escape the
relentless homogenization of the world.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Our world seems to travel too fast, as we stumble from one
crisis to another, each event often caused by the sheer speed to which we have
accelerated our lives. We look to media all day, reflect upon it rarely and act
upon its’ desires all of the time; we lose control and we head at an ever
increasing pace toward something.

And then there is Manari.

A tiny ranch, now with plans to develop only ten square miles down from its former 95 square mile footprint,
the property is history. It is not really historical, but it embodies the
remarkable hard-scrabble history of this remote and quite fascinating part of
the world.

So let me tell you a story.

Henry Prideaux Collie Melville, now there’s a name, was a man
of vision, clearly itchy feet, an apparently authoritarian air and
determination by the bucket load. Born a Sagittarius in Jamaica in 1864, he was
indeed positive and straightforward; he headed to Guyana in the late 19th
century and purchased the massive Dadanawa Ranch in 1880 while out prospecting
for gold. The ranch grew from the 300 head that he bought to a massive 5,000
head station, and all the time, the family grew. His daughter Margaret, one of ten children, married a Basque, Theodore Orella, a chap whose life had obviously taken a significantly sharp turn as he found himself a cowboy in the South American Savannah. They built Manari in 1927, and had two children, Louis and Margaret who kept the place alive. Now Louis' daughter Lissa carries the family torch, and keeps Manari alive.

Today, the Southern Rupununi is a truly remarkable place,
and the descendants of HPC have grown to form the most impenetrable and
supportive fabric that can be woven by a family. From generation to generation
new ranches evolved as families grew, and today, one of these offshoots is the
remarkable delightful Manari Ranch.

Conveniently for visitors, the property lies only seven
miles or so from Lethem, but the short distance belies the decades of time that
get shorn from one’s being as you step through the door. This is no theme park;
this is the real thing.

Managed today by HPC’s remarkable great-granddaughter, Lissa
Orella, a bright and quietly competent woman, the ranch draws its future
directly from its past.

Lissa is remarkable; attractive and unassuming, one would
not suspect the drive that keeps her and

The Manari Swimming Hole

her “project” going. She left Guyana
in 1994 to live in Canada, but following the death of her father, Louis,
she returned to the family home in 2010. Guided mostly, it seems, by her DNA,
and with the experience of eighteen years of working in Home Depot to call on,
she sold her house in Toronto and set to work. Cleaning; working to bring order
to chaos, and to get the ranch onto its feet.

And what a job she has done; assisted with the vast,
skillful and willing extended family, Manari has reappeared as a family centerpiece, and one that they are willing to share with tourists seeking their rather special environment.

It is not a five-star resort; at night, it is a million-star resort, but the facilities are completely in line with what one would expect from this renaissance. It reflects the deep history and the style of the period it emerged, and as such is completely entrancing.

It is, first and foremost, once again a centre for family;
I was fortunate to be there during a funeral, and family and friends from miles
around came not only to pay their respects to the departed, but also to be with
family; this sense of togetherness was palpable, and the effect that the ranch
had on the generations that were at the event was immediate. Manari was more
than a ranch; it is more than a home; Manari is a centre for the remarkable descendants
of HPC and the families that have been woven into this wonderful fabric.

And so for visitors; not everyone will (fortunately) be there
to participate in a major family event, but they will feel for themselves the fabric
of the property’s past. They will realise that this is no theme park, and
indeed it is the antithesis of these plastic atrocities; it is a place of
history, of lives lived and a place of the future.

As Lissa develops the property there will be more activities
added; horseback riding, mountain biking, perhaps, visiting the nearby
Amerindian villages, swimming in the creek and quite simply, relaxing. Evelyn
Waugh stayed here in 1933, and the atmosphere in which I found myself deposited
had changed little. It is a place of character, and a place of growth.

Day excursions from Manari

It is a simple property; showers are run from water taken
heated by the sun, beds are comfortable but simple, air conditioning is simply
not on the agenda; meals are good and often in the evenings taken with whomsoever
is there of family, friends and workers. The air is clear, the swimming hole
inviting and the whole experience of being at Manari is remarkable.

In the mad-paced world of 2016, it was reassuring and
comforting to know that not all of the world has chosen to become dominated by
speed.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Peter is an Amerindian, and lives in St. Ignatius, a
settlement of 2,000 folks living adjacent to the Guyanese community of Lethem.
The village, home to both the Makushi and the Wapishana people was officially
settled in 1909 by a Jesuit priest, but as is the way of indigenous history,
their culture and settlement predated this cartographic moment by thousands
of years. Of course the village was not called St. Ignatius before the Jesuits
arrived, but had been called Zewari by the local people for ever.

Traditional groups of people have called these lands home
for millennia; recent archaeological work tentatively dates settlements in the
Amazon as far back as 5,000 years, a formidable timeline. The contemporary Amerindians,
as one might imagine, do not really accept the national border system that
keeps the rest of us in administrative check, and are free to travel and settle
throughout the region.

Peter had spent some time in Brazil, as so many others of
this region have done, and upon his return, decided to build a tourism program.
He took a tourism management program in Georgetown, and returned to the
Rupununi to reclaim land formerly owned by his grandparents, but then left to
lie in distress.

The Rupununi Savannah and Kunuku Mountains

By sheer dint of hard work over four years, he built his
fledgling attraction at Kumu Falls. Rebuilding a three-mile road through the
bush, carrying one or two bags of gravel using only a chainsaw, and using this
same at a time by motorcycle; felling trees to make planks and hauling this raw
lumber from the forest one at a time to build the structures at the heart of
the project, and clearing garbage bag after bag after bag is a very good
indicator of the man that Peter Joseph is.

Peter Joseph

And today, he has the start of a fine tourist attraction.
His property lies twenty miles from Lethem; driving there one passes
through the gorgeous Savannah country and the village of Kunu before reaching
the foot of the Kanuku Mountains where, centred around a waterfall, Peter’s
resort is taking shape. Now it is a place to spend a day relaxing, hiking the
river trails, swimming under the pristine waterfall and enjoying lunch. Some camp
overnight, but for now it is more of a day-trip destination.

His plans are endless; next are some overnight cabins to be
built at a height of about seven metres in the trees’ canopy; perhaps a
conference room, a new bus to ferry clients to/from the resort is on order, and
will be ready in a week or so.

The core of Kunu Falls

I have worked for years with tourism programs in small communities,
and feel that the importance of tourism as a part of the economic and cultural
mosaic that is each separate economy is vital. I believe that working with a
group’s history, and by rediscovering traditional beliefs, music, art, history
and connecting with the community’s past allows a clearer vision of the future.
Tourism is but a by-product of this connection, and important one to be sure,
but most importantly, it is an opportunity for the past to be integrated into
the economic and social evolution of the village. Peter’s project of one of the
best that I have ever seen.

I loved the day there; the immersion into the Amerindian
culture in this pristine setting was a tonic. Meeting Peter and hearing his
stories, both personal and cultural were fascinating, and the drive that this
sort of development gives to the culture and economy of the indigenous culture
of the region is immeasurable.

Thanks, Peter, for a most interesting and thought-provoking
day. You have a fine facility.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

By the time that I was finally faced with an armed man
demanding money, I laughed; it had been that kind of day.

Up early to drive 650kms south from Puerto Ordaz to the
border town of Santa Elena de Uairen, we set off in a reasonably jolly mood,
tempered slightly by the effects a lovely bar in which beer costs 50c per
bottle.

Las Cristas

The drive south was interesting, to a point, and from time
to time. Latin America is not ridden with historical towns and monuments; rural
Venezuela is a pretty hard scrabble place, with low-lying towns busy with nail
shops, automotive repairs, tattoo parlours, coffee hang-outs and the other necessities
of day-to-day life. The countryside is beautiful; the towns are functional.

We passed south through town after town, passing El Callão,
a gold mining town famous only as the supposed residence of Henri Charrière, or
Papillon, after his escape from the French penal system.

From there we headed into the Canaima National Park,
although it has to be said that roads through jungles offer little idea of what
they have to offer beyond the first ten feet of deep and myriad greens. We did
see, however, dozens of muddy 4WD vehicles, a testament to the parks
attractions, and an indication of much to be explored, but we drove on.

Stopping only to fill with gas, and this proved a little
more difficult than one might have thought. Long lines at gas stations, and
some with no fuel for sale was a little odd for this oil-rich country. However,
when we found out that to fill our Hyundai Santa Fe with 60 litres of fuel cost
5 Bolivars, we realized why.

The Gas Stop

Dick and Alfonso

Bear in mind that there are 600 Bolivars to the dollar; 5 of
them represents less than one cent. To fill a tank; yes, this is not a misprint.
A bottle of wine, however, costs about 13,000 bolivars, and even a litre of
water set me back 250 of these peculiar Venezuelan Bolivars.

And so we continued; all the while cognizant of the dangers
of travelling through the “Wild and Lawless Venezuelan Savannah”; well, it was
a bit of a let down on that side, and perhaps the fifteen military checkpoints
that we passed through had something to do with it. It seemed safe, and unless
one ran out of gas, very interesting indeed. We were expecting to see clusters of young women walking delicately after surgery, a new specialisation apparently of the doctors of Puerto Ordaz is the reshaping of Brazilian bottoms, but to no avail, perhaps because it was Sunday

It was, in fact, the last of these military checks that
proved difficult. We were singled out to empty our suitcases in the sun, and
then replace our non-sinister clothes and “personal effects”. Clearly not satisfied, our young soldier
called another young soldier who led me quietly into a dark room. On the wooden
table lay about seventy tubes of Colgate toothpaste and an equal number of
bottles of powder; I could see what these chaps were up against.

The Savannah, with a Tepuy in the background

I emptied my pockets; he counted my money; he looked at my passports
and credit cards and told me to put them all back in my pocket. And it was at
this moment, that the young, gun-toting Private C. Jiminez indicated that my
expedient departure would be eased with a payment of "say, one dollar".

Gun or no gun, I couldn’t help laughing, and gave the poor
bugger five. I have been shaken down by professionals at borders, the TransDniestran
/ Ukrainian border still brings me to a shudder, but this poor lad was clearly
in the preliminary learning stages. Still giggling, I told my compadre Dick about
the soldiers’ form, and sent him in. In a fit if remorse, possibly prompted by
my writing down his name and that of the battalion, the novice Jiminez came quickly out
and pressed the fiver back in my hand, waving us away to the border, and our
next adventure.

We bought our driver, a fine chap called Alfonso lunch
before we parted, and paid our bill to him; fortunately the 90,000 Bolivars
(remember, 5 for 60 litres of gas) could be paid in dollars at a rather
advantageous rate; given that the largest denomination of Bolivars is 100,
90,000 would have required a brick of the things.

The choice is yours

The Venezuelan / Brazilian border is OK. I like land
borders; I like the no-man’s land between the frontier posts and the sense of
thrill as one passes through. It has to be said, though, that while the Venezuelans
seem to have been building infrastructure at a whopping rate while they were
flush with oil money and revolutionary fervor, this construction stopped at the
immigration booth which is a trailer that allows three folks at a time to be
processed.

Never mind, we were, and plodded up the hill to the
Brazilians; by now, adept at jumping queues through wither linguistic challenge
or otherwise, we found ourselves tumbling out of the Brazilian building and
into Brazil. Obviously.

The soon-to-be-late taxi

Finding a cab to take us on the rest of the journey, the next
230 kms to Boa Vista proved to be a little harder than we thought, and
eventually we settled on a rather old vehicle that in the end didn’t quite make
it.

Forty minutes from Boa Vista the alternator died, and we
were stopped at the side of a dark but moderately busy highway. Fortunately, he
could find some patchy cell coverage some two hundred metres from the van, and
within an hour, another car came and finished of the journey.

Saturday, January 9, 2016

When one is a points junkie like me, travel routings
become secondary to the availability of the elusive redemption seats. Coupled
with my interests in travelling to some rather unusual places, this has put me
on an odd route or two.

I wanted to go to the Rupununi savannah in southern
Guyana. Doesn’t everybody? It is a pristine land, well off the beaten track,
and awkward to reach. Deciding against the obvious, flying to Georgetown and
then flying south, I opted to fly first to Caracas, then to Puerto Ordaz (where
I sit at this very moment), and tomorrow continuing by road to the Brazilian
border (nine bumpy hours), and into Boa Vista, the capital of Brazil’s remote
province of Roraima. From there, it is only a few hours up the river to the Guyaneseborder at Lethem.

The first stage was to get to Caracas.

I chose to use COPA, the airline of Panama, who fly from
Chicago (among several other north American gateways) to their hub at Panama
and thence to Caracas. And what a pleasant surprise the flight was; a brand new
Boeing 737-800, with ample legroom in both business and economy, terrific
flight crew and good in-flight service. It is amazing how low our expectations
of airline service have become, and how little it takes to have us marveling.

Their hub, Tocumen Airport in Panama City, was an
eye-opener. COPA operates 105 aircraft to seventy-one destinations in
thirty-one countries; who knew. Their hub is a terrific transit point, and
their fleet and scheduling allows one-stop connectivity between North, South,
Central Americas and the Caribbean.

Our layover, seven hours, a function of reward seat
availability rather than choice, was too long. Not really long enough to go
into the city, as we were warned that the traffic on the return journey could
have us gridlocked for a couple of hours; so we hung around, tired of the shops
and eventually headed to Caracas.

We had prepaid a room at the curiously named, but very
good Eurobuilding Hotel through our travel agency; however, when we arrived at
0100, we were advised that the payment of $80 had not gone through and that we
would have to pay $149. Clearly, this displeased me, and at my most truculent,
said “No”; I tried to call the reservation company who handled the booking, but
being the middle of the night, I was on hold for an hour. Eventually, the poor
girl at the check-in gave us rooms and said we should figure out payment in the
morning; this was good, because once one gives in and pays, the money is gone.

In the morning, a delightful manager said that if the
prepayment had been made that was good, but she didn’t see any reason to charge
us again. So, I shall scour my credit card bills and see what happened. If anything.

But the story doesn’t end there.

She asked where we were going, and once I had outlined the
itinerary she seemed to be genuinely worried. Suggestions like keeping money in
my shoe, and hiding my iPhone as I wandered through the local bus stations
seemed both sensible and unnerving.

Within an hour or so, she called to say that she had arranged
for a car and driver from their sister property in Puerto Ordaz to drive us to
the border; the nine-hour run would cost us 90,000 Bolivars, a good
introduction to the Black Market.

Officially this would have been US$750. Unofficially,
buying Bolivars "On the Black", the cost was US$150. An introduction to currency
madness unseen (by me) since the Fall of the Wall. Taking her advice to heart,
we were met by the driver at the airport, and advised that it was too late to
set off tonight, but that we could stay at the Eurobuilding Hotel. We were
driven there; far from town the hotel rose like a phoenix from the scrub, and
delightful it is; a five-star property, all marble and fountains, and priced
accordingly.

Well, remembering the advice about changing money, the 25,000
Bolivar per night room dropped immediately from $150 to $40/night, with a
rather pleasant chap who was also checking in providing the exchange.

Needless to say, the restaurant and bar prices look
attractive. The fact that the largest Venezuelan banknote is for 100 Bolivars is
inconvenient, and the wad we have to pay off the driver’s 90,000 tomorrow will
be spectacular.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

In October last
year, I rented a car from Hertz in Toulouse for a couple of weeks. I have done
this several times over the past seven years, and it has always been smooth.

When the
vehicle was returned to the airport, completely unscathed, full of diesel and
with only a further 900 or so kms on its clock, all seemed well. The return was
registered at 5.02pm, and the automatic invoice generated at 5.04pm.

The invoice,
however, contained a charge for €221 for “24/24 Assistance”; this is odd, as my
profile (and I am a Gold Five-Star Member”) clearly indicates that I wish for
no insurance or supplementary protections at all; none, whatsoever, and to
date, these instructions have been followed.

Now, however,
the game was on.

First, I
assumed that a quick phone call to the Gold Line would suffice; silly me. After
being transferred four times, with each concomitant wait, I was advised that it
was a “French Matter”, and that my query would be forwarded to them. This was
followed by a blizzard of helpful emails, many of which sought my impression of
their service to be offered through the completion of an “on-line survey”.

To no avail.

I disputed the
amount through American Express, and they took the offending payment off my
bill. And we waited.

I was then
advised by Amex that Hertz had advised that the charge was for “cleaning”, and apparently
I had put the wrong sort of fuel in the car, and they were replacing the charge
and would I now cough up.

Well, the
problems with this scenario are three-fold:

Had I put
ordinary fuel into a diesel car, I would not have made it back to the airport

They would
have been hard pressed to make this determination within the two-minute window
between returning the car and dispatching the bill, and

I had a
receipt proving that diesel had been poured (lavishly) into their vehicle.

Not even close.

I submitted
another hold on the Amex account and set off to round two. This has culminated
in a letter from the Hertz collections folks in the UK (“How did the UK get
into it”, I hear you ask) who are actually, it turns out, in the Republic of
Ireland.

This missive
tells me in no uncertain terms that:

This is all
my fault

I should pay
immediately or face the wrath of collection agencies

I will be
prevented from renting from Hertz in the future

My immediate
attention to this matter is “required”

Well, faced
with this wall, I again phoned. Not that the phone number they gave me was any
good; they advised me to call a number in the UK using the international prefix
“00”; this is, in fact, the prefix used by people in the UK (and presumably the
Irish Republic) to call out. North Americans calling to the UK use a prefix “011”;
a minor point, but if one writes snotty and heavy handed letters demanding “immediate
attention”, the least they would do is get their own phone number right.

And so to
chatting with the lovely Rachel. I don’t know about you, but those poor folks
who work for collection agencies, airline lost-luggage departments or those
whose job it is to rebook passengers stranded in the eye of a storm always seem
to be medicated.

We have a
conversation; I reiterate the issues and my most reasonable position; she sympathizes
and says that I must have put the wrong sort of fuel in the car; I explain the
different size nozzles that are attached to fuel pumps to prevent this sort of
accident; she sympathizes and once again suggests that the wrong type of fuel
has been used. I supply the image of the receipt for the correct type of fuel
and she thinks that they may have to refer this matter to France.

I hang up,
in a growly but jovial mood, and am immediately faced with cheery new emails from Hertz thanking me for
contacting their customer service people and asking how I “felt about the
experience”.

Hertz;
please, just sort this out. I have been a loyal customer for years, but
honestly, there is really little difference between your vehicles and those belonging
to AVIS or Sixt.

Companies like
Hertz have become too big. They are, as we all know, also Dollar and Thrifty,
and big enough to feature such powerful role models as O. J. Simpson as their barkers. They have, however, lost touch with indivuduals during this growth.
And they are not alone.

There are now
only 3.5 airlines in the US (American (1,494 aircraft), Delta (1,280), United
(1,264) and Southwest (683)), and as they have grown, so has their tolerance
for irritated passengers. If one assumes that 1/2% of each airlines’ passengers
are grumpy and “never want to travel with them again”, it is a large number,
but these gruntleless passengers have only two alternatives. And each carrier will receive as many passengers
who have lost their gruntle with a competitor as they lose.

So why
bother to calm the waters? Much more economical to let them squeal and run to
the competitors; a sound business decision, and an attitude that we see more
and more often in the surviving corporate behemoths that dominate the serevice sector.

The triumph
of capitalism in the service industry seems to be the attainment of the pinnacle from
which one can simply be Too Big to Care.